


Reunification

by 1lostone



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, CARL IS NOT DEAD OKAY, Daryl really needs a goddamn hug okay, I kind of took some of the stuff I liked before the show went to crap and kept it, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Disability, Please read the notes for specifics, Prosthesis, Rickyl Writers' Group, Scars, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Spoilers for the end of the Telltale game, and tried to fix the rest, birthday fic, redemption fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:00:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23761204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1lostone/pseuds/1lostone
Summary: Rick Grimes had no memory of how he got here. He felt lost, adrift, and desperately confused. He knew one thing, however. Wherever he was, his family was not here, and Rick was not going to stand for that. So, fine. He’d watch. He’d wait. He’d gather information. And for those responsible for keeping him away from his people?Rick would burn this motherufcking place to theground.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes, Rickyl - Relationship
Comments: 87
Kudos: 110
Collections: Lost's Gift Fics





	1. Chapter 1 (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaroonCamaro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaroonCamaro/gifts).



> Hiiiii! So first off, excuse these notes. I always try not to yammer on, but want to share a few things.
> 
> Trigger warnings are in the end notes, so you can avoid them if you wish. Once I'm done with the fic I'll go back and tag everything. 
> 
> I have not written Rickyl in a minute. I'm not 100% sure I have my groove back, but this is a birthday present for my friend MaroonCamaro, and I had to come out of hiding and write this. 
> 
> Carl is not dead because fuck that. I used this site: https://collider.com/walking-dead-timeline-explained/ for my dates, times, etc, and this is set roughly six months after the bridge explosion.

re·uni·fy | \ (ˌ) _rē-ˈyü-nə-ˌfī_ \  
reunified; reunifying; reunification  
  
Definition of reunify: to unify again: to bring (people or things) or to be brought into a unit or a coherent whole after a period of separation

* * *

**Prologue**

**Day(Night) ???**

* * *

The last time Rick had woken up in a hospital, the whole world had ended. Sometimes, before, he had dreamed about it. Nightmares plagued waking and sleeping hours. Nightmares now walked on two legs. 

He’d dreamed about Harrison Memorial; the hospital he’d woken up in: endless hospital corridors filled with the filthy, rotten smell of decomposing bodies- back when that smell had been rare. He’d dreamed about that first night with Morgan, the terror of being surrounded and the not-quite-belief that any of this insanity was real. 

He dreamed about the first little girl he’d seen. No one had ever been able to explain why she’d picked up the teddy bear, as though part of her brain hadn’t realized that she was dead, but it was an image that had haunted him. 

He’d dreamed of Sophia, of Shane, of Lori. 

He’d dreamed of Carl holding Judith close, keeping his scarred face away from her so that she wouldn’t be scared. 

He dreamed of Daryl. 

This time when he woke up his first thought was that everything- those years of survival- had been a dream. He was dreadfully thirsty, and horribly confused. 

He could see the fluorescent light shining brightly down from the ceiling. The steady _beep. . . beep. . . beep. . ._ of a heart monitor, and the scent of antiseptic gave him a sense of place. 

He was in a hospital. 

“Hey.”

Rick blinked and turned his head at the sound of the voice. It was a young woman, sitting in the bed next to him. 

“I’d get you a drink but. . .” She trailed off, holding up her arm with a slight smirk. Rick was somewhat nonplussed to see that she was cuffed to the bedrail. “I bet someone will be by in no time. They’ve been waiting for you for a while.” 

Rick wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t dreaming. She hardly looked like a criminal. She was thin, in the way that almost everyone was thin, with close-cropped curly black hair. Her skin was a light brown, and her petite frame was wiry with muscle. She wore a black T-shirt and scrub bottoms, and her hazel eyes seemed friendly enough. There was a recent scar on her face, starting on her forehead over her left eye, continuing through her eyebrow, skirting most of her eyelid, and curving towards her left ear. There were a few stitches and two butterfly bandages holding it together. 

Rick tried to sit up and was alarmed to find that he was strapped in. The straps weren’t part of a “normal” bed- they’d been added to his ankles and his torso to keep him from turning over. His arms were also strapped down, carefully avoiding the IV in his wrist, and Rick heard the beeps of the heartrate monitor increase as his heartrate tipped over into panic. 

“Hey now. Take a breath. Someone will be here in a second.” 

Her words were prophetic. The door slammed open, and two people rushed inside. “Hey there, Mr. Grimes. I need you to breathe for me. Everything is fine, and my colleague here will explain everything as soon as you calm down.” The man wore a white coat and had a stethoscope around his neck. His skin was almost ruddy, as though he spent a lot of time in the sun. His ‘colleague’ was an older woman, with her grey hair braided into a crown around her head. She wore a plaid shirt under a vest and khaki pants that were almost bizarrely pristine. 

The man pressed against his shoulder and the woman bustled out of view. Instinct had Rick craning his neck to keep her in his line of sight, but it hurt too much. His skin felt too tight, as though there wasn’t enough of it to stretch over parts of his body. The man, Rick assumed doctor although there was no way to tell for sure, pressed the stethoscope to his chest. It was such an anachronistic action that Rick found himself freezing in place, attention caught from the years and years of muscle memory. He breathed deeply, and as he did, the frantic beeps of the heartrate monitor slowed down. 

“That’s it.” 

“Yeah, calm down so they can tell you how they fucked you over,” The girl snorted and sat back in her bed with a rattle of the handcuff. 

“Now, Clementine, you know that’s just not true.” Rick shut his eyes, feeling a bit overwhelmed. He could hear the woman behind him and absolutely did not care for the fact he couldn’t see her. Rick’s eyes flew open at the sharp crack and cry of pain. His head whipped towards the girl on the bed and saw that she was holding the stump of her lower left leg. The woman held a syringe and the girl, Clementine, only had a moment to flinch back before she was injected. Whatever it was was strong enough that Clementine’s eyes fluttered as the drug took hold. She had time for one garbled “Fuuu--” before passing out back on the bed. 

The woman turned to Rick and smiled. Her smile reminded Rick of a wolf’s- cold and full of teeth. He immediately turned his attention back to the doctor, mistrusting. His instincts felt sluggish and slow but were slowly coming back into focus. Rick didn’t want to, but he shut his eyes again, concentrating on his breathing, working at seeing harmless and disoriented. Given that he was restrained and pretty fucking confused, it wasn’t too difficult. 

“Mr. Grimes. I apologize for your restraints, but it is important that you remain calm. Your friend Anne has brought you to us, and you are quite ill.”

Now that Rick was listening for it, Rick realized that the man’s voice was as empty and fractured as the woman’s voice had been. Whatever it was that was going on, Rick couldn’t do much about it until he had more information. 

“Yeah. Feel a bit puny.” Rick slurred his voice, whispering, but his mind was whirling with the slight bit of information he had. 

“Understandable. You go ahead and rest, and I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.” 

Rick nodded, still with his eyes closed. He kept his face relaxed, and his breathing even. 

He heard a squeak of someone’s shoes, and the sound of a door opening, then closing. Rick counted to one hundred, then peeked through his lashes. The room was dark, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t being watched. 

_Just because you're paranoid don’t mean they ain’t out to get you._

Daryl’s voice. 

Rick squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing hard for a moment. He forced himself to focus. 

He had no memory of how he got here. He was in a hospital, restrained for “his own good” by two people who had hurt a young girl for no reason- other than the fact that she’d maligned the two chucklefucks that he’d seen when he woke up. The doctor had mentioned an ‘Anne,’ but that name could have belonged to anyone for all it meant to him.

He knew one thing, however. Wherever he was, his family was _not here_ , and Rick was not going to stand for that. So, fine. He’d watch. He’d wait. He’d gather information. And if these two were responsible for keeping him away from his people? 

Rick would burn this motherufcking place to the _**ground.** _

  
  



	2. Approximately 180 days after the Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had planned on my posting day to be Sunday, but I just read some amazing comments and gosh darn it you guys are so sweet that I was motivated to finish the chapter and decided to post it early.

**Chapter 2- Approximately 180 days after the Bridge**

**8:03 PM**

* * *

“Hey, Daryl? Got a sec?” 

Daryl looked up, squinting through his bangs, hand tightening on the knife before recognition hit him. Hell. He’d been there while the damn voice had warbled between the low tenor and squeaky soprano of boyhood. Daryl spared an annoyed look towards Dog who was busy licking at Carl’s hand, belly up, wiggling with joy as the teenager rubbed his stomach. 

Damn dog. 

Daryl’s gaze fell on Carl, and he couldn’t help but tighten his lips. Only Carol and Carl knew where he’d chosen to camp. Carol was busy with the Kingdom, and Daryl didn’t fault her for it. He was glad that she’d found some happiness with the bullshit they’d lived with. He knew that she wouldn’t come to him unless there was something dire. Daryl had tried to get the same promise from Carl, but the kid had almost laughed in his face, smiling a smile that held no warmth. The smile said ‘yeah okay,’ but Daryl knew that unless he wanted to really disappear, the kid would do whatever he damn well pleased when it came to finding him in the woods. The kid hadn’t taken the loss of his father very well. Hell. None of them had. 

But Carl had. . . changed. 

Gone was the sweet kid who had bravely kept all of them safe in the sewers while Negan’s people had attacked. The months without Rick had taken their toll on all of them, but for Carl, the boy had grown up. Had hardened. Michonne had told him that Carl would disappear for days and days. He didn’t flirt with Enid. He didn’t volunteer to watch his baby sister. He didn’t help with the community. In the six months or so that Daryl had stopped speaking, choosing to isolate himself until he either found Rick’s body or some goddamn fucking answers, Carl had become a ghost of the kid he’d been. 

He even looked different. There were scars that hadn’t been there the last time Daryl had seen him. He wore two guns and had a rifle slung across his back. He carried very little, aside from his weapons, a bedroll, and a beat-up old leather backpack. His father’s hat had long been replaced with a baseball cap. The eyepatch was gone. 

Daryl set aside the knife he was using to skin the two squirrels, and clicked his teeth, gesturing towards the small spitted creatures roasting over his fire. Carl got up from his knees and made himself comfortable on the log that Daryl had slung beside his fire, deftly moving the spitted meat to the side to cool for a moment before beginning to eat. Daryl wiped his hands and joined him. 

“I’m not gonna waste your time. I think. . . I think I found him.” 

Daryl felt his body go hot, then cold, and for a moment he was afraid he was gonna fucking puke, right there. He must have looked pretty bad, because Carl reached out to grasp his forearm, grounding him as he swayed. 

“What?” The croaked whisper was the first word he’d spoken in. . . months. 

“I need you to come with me. I think I found some answers, and. . .” Carl looked down at the crackling fire. “I just need your help.” 

Daryl stared at him until Carl met his gaze. The missing eye had long since healed, but there were a few lumpy scars on where the eye ridge and top of his cheekbone used to be, where even Denise’s quick stitching and steady hands had left their mark. The missing eye was shocking of course, but the eye socket just looked like skin, albeit slightly darker than the rest of the skin on his face. Daryl had never asked, but he’d always thought that behind the eye patch there was a mess of a ruined face, but this? This was as healed as it was going to ever get. Carl had the beginnings of a beard, and his face was filthy. The remaining blue eye was red-rimmed, and the bags under his eye and eye socket spoke to exhaustion. Carl ran his hand over his head, knocking off the baseball cap, and the buzzed hair on his skull was somehow the most shocking thing of all. 

The two of them stared at each other for long enough that had they been anyone else, the moment would have been awkward and uncomfortable. Hell. Maybe it was, and Daryl was just out of practice with people. 

He swallowed. “You better explain.” 

Dog whined, picking up on the fact that something was wrong, and slunk over to him, before sitting and looking around, alert for a threat. 

Carl stared at him solemnly, and for a second he was the kid Daryl had taught to hunt and track. Daryl blinked, and the older, world-weary young man sat in front of him, exhausted and worried. 

“You know that I’ve been. . . looking. Like you’ve been looking. Like Michonne has.” 

Daryl flinched, then nodded. Looking, tracking, praying, all of it. He didn’t even have a number for how many corpses he’d checked to make sure they weren’t Rick. Each time he saw someone with short, black hair, or cowboy boots, or jeans, his heart would jump into his throat. Trepidation would strangle him. His hands would get clammy when he clutched his crossbow, and his balls would crawl into his gut. When he affirmed it wasn’t Rick, his eyes would sting and water, _every goddamn time_. 

Carl, anticipating his next question, spoke slowly. “Michonne isn’t leaving the Zone. I started to tell her about this, but I think she. . . she’s not willing to leave.” Carl’s single-eyed gaze grew even more assessing. It was Rick’s no bullshit gaze staring back at him. Daryl told himself to stop acting like a goddamn idiot, and straightened his back, giving the kid his full attention. 

“You’ll help me.” 

It wasn’t a request, and both of them knew it. 

Daryl, needing refuge from the intensity of Carl’s directness, quickly field dressed the two squirrels and tossed the guts to Dog, before spitting them and putting them over the fire. Carl had set aside the second bit of meat for Daryl, who gestured shortly at Carl to eat the goddamn thing. 

Carl finished it about as quickly as Dog finished his snack, and both of them looked at him briefly with the same sort of hopeful look. Daryl’s lip quirked and he dug in his bag for some jerky to toss Carl’s way. 

He added a log to the fire while Carl pulled one of the camp chairs closer and made himself comfortable. Dusk wasn’t far off, and normally he wouldn’t bother given that the fire tended to draw attention, but he trusted in his camp traps to alert him if something wandered too close, and it was strangely comforting to sit across Carl from a cheerful campfire. 

Carl rummaged in his bag for bottled water and handed Daryl one. Before. . . Carl would have just launched into an explanation, almost babbling in his eagerness to show off what he knew. This Carl was quiet, introspective; he chose his words carefully, thinking about what he wanted to say. 

“When I was in the Zone, I snuck down to talk to Negan.”

Daryl fought the urge to clutch his knife’s handle. 

Carl held up a hand as though to stave off Daryl’s immediate objection. “He doesn’t talk much, surprisingly. He’s not. . . like you remember. Drives Michonne absolutely bugshit when I go down there, but. . .” Carl shrugged. “I’m kinda responsible for him being there so I don’t mind that much.” 

Daryl nodded, once, shortly. To say he had some regrets about his last few weeks with Rick was like saying the walkers were a little inconvenient. The two of them fighting seemed pointless now, but Daryl was damned if he could forget it. Or change it. 

He sure as shit could regret it though.

The way that things had gone down with the Sanctuary and Negan after Daryl had been faced with a massive Rick-shaped hole in his life, seemed gritty and almost oily with remembrance. Having all of it culminating in Rick slitting Negan’s throat. . . and then _saving_ him? Rick was so goddamn sure that there was a good reason to save the psychotic fuck that he’d managed to piss off just about everyone they knew. Michonne, Aaron, Maggie, hell. Even Jesus was less than thrilled at their permanent resident. Whatever. It still seemed a poor trade to him. Negan was a piece of shit, he would always be a piece of shit, but Daryl didn’t much think he was in a place to throw rocks at glasshouses. 

“Bullshit.” 

Carl seemed surprised that he’d spoken, and Daryl ducked his head as a small blush stained his cheeks. Carl’s lips stretched in a rusty smile, as though the muscles hadn’t moved in that way in long, long, time. “Yeah, well. My dad could be a stubborn asshole. But to go back to my point, I wouldn’t have even been put on this trail if Negan hadn’t sent me there.” 

Daryl’s eyebrows got lost in his hairline. His first, and second instinct was to laugh in the kid’s face. Negan wasn’t exactly known for his altruistic nature. The memory of the fucking song he’d ordered to be played while they had him at the Sanctuary echoed through his head and Daryl found himself tightening his fingers into a fist. His knuckles popped. 

He nodded at the kid, waiting for the punchline. 

“Right. Well, just. . . keep that in mind, okay?” Carl looked strangely nervous for a brief second, then muttered something under his breath that Daryl didn’t quite catch. He looked up towards the woods near Daryl’s left, a muscle twitching above his eye. Dog started barking; low, furious, warnings for whatever or whoever was there to get the fuck out of his territory. Daryl’s head whipped around, as adrenaline flooded his system. 

When Daryl saw who walked out of the brush, he could relate. 

Negan stood there, hands raised, pale face blank except for a small smile that twisted his lips, as though he was fully aware of just how fucked up this was and was gonna do it anyway- damn the consequences. He wore clothes that were faded, but clean: jeans, a sweater, and a plaid shirt underneath. Without the motorcycle jacket and boots he looked less. . . him.

Daryl sprung up out of his chair and took a step back, making sure he could keep both of them in his startled sights. He called off Dog with a sharp movement of his hand. Dog stopped barking but growled low in his throat, confused from the mixed messages Daryl knew that he had to be sending. The fur on the back of Dog’s neck stood up, but he stood at Daryl’s side, waiting. 

To Daryl’s absolute shock, Negan immediately fell to his knees, and then to his stomach, stretching his hands out to his sides and pressing his cheek to the grass, showing that he was utterly defenseless. Daryl watched as Carl nodded once, rummaged in his bag for something else, and went to where Negan had stretched out, cuffing him quickly with no resistance. 

“Sorry- I couldn’t have him arrive in cuffs. Figured he had to be able to defend himself while we moved.” Carl ducked his head and itched at one of the scars above his eyebrow. “Well, shit. Have a seat and let me see if I can explain.” 

Dog stalked over to the intruder on stiff legs, still less than pleased at the intrusion. Daryl knew he was frowning, but couldn’t seem to stop. Daryl was pissed that Carl had brought this piece of shit to the small area he had called his. He was pissed that Negan seemed extremely focused on not giving Daryl a reason to blow his goddamn head off. 

But most of all? Daryl was pissed that despite himself, he wanted to hear what the kid had to say. **  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**

* * *

**TBC!**

**  
  
  
  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carl Grimes, ladies and gentlemen, amirite? 
> 
> (oh some of the backstory might be a bit confusing, but it will be cleared up in-story soon!) 
> 
> Oh! And I know that I've said this on other fics, but if anyone wants an invite to the RWG let me know!


	3. March 9th, 2014

**8:10 PM**

* * *

Rick lost track of day and night. His room had no windows, and they kept the lights low and high at different times of the day. He slept deeply, and when he was lucid usually had just enough time to wonder if he was being drugged before he passed out again. The feeling of a catheter was awful, and at least that explained why he never needed to pee. Unless completely exhausted, Rick was always a restless sleeper and now that he couldn’t move due to his restraints, he seemed to notice it more. His dreams were strange, and it was that more than anything else that made him believe that they were drugging him. That pissed him off; when he was able to focus enough to be pissed. 

It could have been days, or hours before he woke. His brain felt scrubbed clean, and at a touch on his arm, his eyes snapped open. 

Clementine stood there, a finger over her lips. It struck Rick then that there was no light in the dark room. He could only see her face from a very dim flashlight that she had put onto his legs while she reached towards his arms. Rick heard a loud crash of thunder, and the darkness started to make sense. She unhooked his restraints and tossed him some clothes. 

“We gotta hurry.” She bundled up his sheets and blankets into a small bundle.

Rick winced as he gingerly disengaged the catheter and yanked the IVs from his hand. He pulled on the sweatpants and the hoodie, zipping it up so his chest and head were covered. 

“The power is off, and we have exactly six minutes to get past the gates before the generator kicks in. I’m sorry there are no shoes, but we gotta go. Follow me, Mr. Grimes.” 

Rick was surprised at how weak he felt. Muscles stretched and burned, and his knees wobbled like a newborn colt’s. His stomach seemed to drop, making him feel nauseous, but he managed to remain on his feet. Clementine stopped briefly to pick up something on a tray before making her way out a door and down a hall to their left. When Rick accidentally stumbled against the wall, Clementine’s hand locked onto his wrist. They moved as quickly as Rick could, and it wasn’t until they crossed down a long hallway and through a door marked with an exit sign that Rick started to think that there was a shot in hell that they would get out. 

Clementine looked at her wristwatch. “Fuck. 150 seconds. Come on!” Clementine started to jog, pulling Rick along behind her, and he forced himself to move exhausted, aching muscles into some semblance of a run. Rick couldn’t see anything in the dark stairwell, but Clementine seemed to know what she was doing. 

It occurred to him that he was trusting her pretty goddamn quickly, but given that he was currently not tied to a hospital bed, he figured he was getting the better end of the deal. 

She slammed through an exit door, with Rick at her heels. In the low pulses of light from the muted lightning above them, he could see the gate shining slightly in the rain. It was chain length with barbed wire circled on the top of the fence. 

Clementine wasted no time, tossing the blankets and sheets onto the barbed wire and starting to scramble up and over like a squirrel. Her left foot got caught on something, and Clementine jerked it free with a curse. Rick sucked in a sharp breath, staring. If he was feeling well, this would be no problem. But he was feeling far from well. His legs were shaking from exhaustion. His stomach ached, and his wrists had been rubbed raw. He was feeling every one of his 45 years, and as he moved, he felt like he was creaking. In the short jog from the exit stairwell to the gate, he’d been drenched. Strangely enough, the rain felt cleansing. 

As soon as Rick saw her jump he took a leap up onto the chain lengths, pulling himself up as best he could with his waning strength. He had just swung one leg over the top, balancing on the blankets Clementine had left, when the low, heavy hum of power caused him to freeze, staring stupidly at the barbed wire in front of him. He tensed, waiting for a jolt of thousands of volts of electricity.

“Come on!” 

Her scream jarred him into action. Rick could see lights turning on all over the facility as breakers flipped and the power was restarted and knew by the strength of the whine of power that he had just a split second to react. Rick closed his eyes for a moment, pictured the faces of his family, and jumped. 

The low hum turned into a heavy, throbbing whine of electricity. Dimly, Rick realized that the blankets and sheets had caught fire as he flung himself over the side. He landed hard. From his new perspective, he could see Clementine’s worried face bent over him, face working as she yelled at him, but he could only stare up at her, the wind knocked out of him. For a moment he had to remember how to breathe, then slowly pulled himself to his feet. Rick was covered in mud, wearing only sweats, the hoodie, and the gown they had him in. 

“There they are!” The shout caused Clementine to jerk in place, and with a panicked look, she met Rick’s gaze and bounded off into the woods. Rick shuffled after her, feeling like one of the goddamn walkers. They ran for what felt like miles. In the rain and the mud, it was very difficult to gauge direction or time. He heard the roar of a motorcycle that reminded him painfully of Daryl. Clementine seemed to change direction willy nilly, and it was all Rick could do to keep up with her. Branches and debris slapped him in the face as he ran, and he felt himself limping as he slowed down. He should have seen the log in front of him, but with everything, he couldn’t avoid it in time. 

Rick fell. 

His whole body jarred, and he felt himself bite his tongue as he landed on his palms and knees. His vision swam, and for a moment he only saw black spots swirling in his vision. “Cle--- Clem,” he wheezed desperately. 

When she stopped and he caught a glimpse of her face in the flickering lightning, Rick felt immeasurably grateful. He had no guarantee that she would stop. He didn’t know her; and he already owed her so much for getting him out of there. At this point, he was a liability and existing on her kindness. 

They were in a spot of overgrowth, with the facility behind them. Overgrown concrete, either a road or a parking lot, scraped his palms as he sucked in oxygen, trying his damnedest to get his breath back. 

“Come on, we gotta move. Follow me. They’re coming and I’m bettin’ they’re not going to be too happy with me.” Thunder rolled, and Rick jerked his head in a nod. The glimpse of metal to his left caught his gaze and he grabbed her forearm, turning her attention to what he saw. 

Without needing to discuss it, they helped each other over. Rick had to pull back a piece of corrugated metal, and Clementine scurried in to check that nothing was already in there waiting for them, but the two of them managed to squeeze together in the small corrugated metal drainage pipe. Clementine was very slender, and he knew that he had lost a significant amount of weight while he’d been ill, but the two of them just barely managed to squeeze into the space. Filthy water trickled under them, but a sound of the bike roaring up outside of their hiding space caused them both to freeze in place. 

"Anything?"

"Nothing. Mercer wants him alive. She's expendable. Look in the buildings around here. Godfuckingdamn this rain!" 

Clementine's body was trembling against his. Blindly, Rick reached out to hold her hand. She squeezed back twice, and he heard her gulp, nervously. He was angry before, but he felt himself barely on the precipice of the place he went to when he'd needed to be his most ruthless. Only the fact that he was weak as a fuckin' kitten kept him from leaping out at the two unsuspecting morons ten feet away. 

A voice on a walkie-talkie crackled, but Rick couldn't discern actual words. He was no stranger to the sound of a voice giving orders though, and after a few minutes, one of the two motorcycles roared off. 

Clementine's wide eyes met his. Rick heard the sound of low radio chatter, and he realized that one of their pursuers were mere feet away. It was too dark in the tunnel to see her face, but he felt her cold fingers on his cheeks. He was startled for a second but allowed her to guide his face to where she wanted it. 

Her whisper was barely above a breath. "I'm gonna take him. You need to hold the gate for me, cuz I gotta do this quiet. If he gets to that radio, we're fucked." 

Rick frowned, then nodded. Having spent as much time as he did with Michonne, Maggie, and Carol, he didn't much subscribe to those old bullshit notions of the man needing to protect the little woman, but it was still difficult for him to acknowledge his own weakness. Could he take the guy? Maybe. But he'd barely made it here, and that was with Clementine's help. If she thought she could take him... he had to trust that she could. 

For someone that he'd only known for an hour, that was staggeringly difficult. Rick nodded again, then realized that she couldn't see him in the darkness and rolled his eyes at himself. He put her fingers against his cheek and nodded one more time. 

They were situated in the tunnel with both of them smooshed together, about a foot away from the grate. It was difficult to do while moving slowly enough so the sound was muffled, but Rick managed. His arms felt like they were burning as the lactic acid built up, but he managed to raise the grate high enough for Clementine to wiggle through. 

Even knowing that she was planning for it, Rick was surprised at how quickly she moved. She was almost completely silent. The low rumble of thunder covered the few sounds she made as she slowly crawled out through the grate and out of the drainage tunnel. Rick waited until he heard a cry of pain before he scrambled out, not nearly as quiet or gracefully as the young woman had, moments before. 

By the time Rick got out, Clementine was kneeling by the man, grimly searching his pockets. The man's throat had been slit, and blood was starting to collect under him. She took his knife, rifle, and his windbreaker, handing it grimly to Rick. Rick slid it on, still shivering a bit. "Don't think we should take the phone. They can trace those, right?" 

Rick nodded. Given the technology he'd seen in the hospital room, a satellite phone probably shouldn't have been a surprise. Years of scrounging caused his instinct to reach for the satphone, but reality intruded, and he took out the battery before crushing it. Clementine handed Rick the keys. "I'm uh, not the best driver. Can you drive a bike?"

Rick nodded. For the first time that night, he found himself smiling a little. "Yeah. The other bike went that way, which means we're gonna get the fuck outta dodge this way. Come on before one of the walkers bites us in the ass." He climbed onto the bike, ignoring the weakness he felt in his limbs. Even with the rain and the storm, he felt confident enough that he could get them at the very least a few miles away before ditching the bike. 

Clementine climbed on behind him, carefully moving the rifle so she had the space to hug him from behind. Rick started the bike, put it in gear, and drove off in the opposite direction that they'd arrived in. 

He chanced using the light for the first few miles, moving as far away as he could. It was hard; he didn't actually know where they were. Nor was he certain what direction they were searching for them in, but they listened for other vehicles as best they could with the rolling storm. Eventually, the rain slowed, and so did Rick, cutting the light and driving more carefully. He paused at the junction of a highway, where several cars either had crashed or stalled. He could see the beginnings of a fairly large city to the east. 

"I think we should ditch the bike. Normally I wouldn't want to go into a city, but there will be plenty of places to hide if we go into--" Clementine squinted at the barely visible signs. "Lexington. We need to get well, and come up with some kind of a plan." 

Rick nodded and swung off the bike. He pushed it into a ditch off the main highway and hoped that would be enough to hide their tracks. The two of them were shivering, barely dressed, with hardly any supplies. It would be dangerous, but just being free from that weird hospital facility gave him the hope that they would somehow figure all this shit out. 

"All right. But let's go quickly. I don't like being out in the open like this." 

"Yeah. Me neither." Rick took a deep breath and began walking, picking his way carefully around the debris in the road. "We got a lot of miles to cover before we find somewhere safe to hole up." Clementine echoed his deep breath and nodded, pushing back her hat and looking behind her. The night had quieted, but they could still hear the faint sound of vehicles in the direction that they'd come from. 

"Okay," she said with a tired smile. "Let's go."

* * *

**TBC!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *waves*
> 
> I had some questions about the title of the last chapter, so here is kind of where my head is at:  
> Day 59 of outbreak- Rick wakes in the hospital  
> Day 309-Judith is born  
> Supposedly Carl dies on day 623, but fuck that noise. He is not bitten while with Siddiq.  
> Day 1207 Maggie goes in to kill a captured Negan. This is also the same day (funnily enough) Rick BBQ's the bridge, and is taken with Anne by the helicopter.  
> So math. 1207- 309 is 898 so Judith would be two years... and 4 months ish old when Rick goes boom.
> 
> Also if you'd like to see my working map of locations of all of the things (yes, I'm the nerd that actually plans all this shit out...) you can see it here:
> 
> ****  
> 


	4. March 9th, 2014, 9:45 PM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. Guyyyys. Thank you so much for the kudos and comments. I appreciate them so much!

**9:45 PM**

* * *

  
"If I move, is that dog gonna go after my balls?" 

"Chopper! Sic balls!" 

Carl didn't shout, but the forest was so quiet that he might as well have. Negan squeaked and pushed his face into the dirt, and Daryl found that he was hard-pressed not to outright laugh. Carl met Daryl's gaze, an impish glint in his eye, and for a second, Daryl's heart hurt for the innocent kid that he'd been. It was somehow funnier that Dog, reacting to the fact that someone was talking more than the words, stalked over to the prone Negan on stiff legs, then growled. 

Daryl turned away and tossed a smaller log on the fire. He checked the perimeter, trusting Carl to take care of whatever bullshit Negan was serving. The sound alarms were up, and rigged, and the fire dug deep enough that the flame wasn't too visible. Once it burned down a little further, he'd feel a helluva lot safer about it, but there was no fucking way that he was going to have a little tete a tete with that motherfucker in the dark. 

By the time he got back to the camp, Negan was slouched on a log, staring dolefully at the flickering flames. Dog wuffed and nudged at Daryl's leg, sitting down next to his camp chair. Carl sat between the two of them, nervously tapping something on his knee. Daryl frowned and sat down, skin-crawling at having him here. 

Carl barely waited until his ass touched the chair before he began speaking. "Okay. So, Negan had a thing with Jadis." 

Negan started to open his mouth, but at a quick glare from Carl, he shut his mouth with a snap. It was impressive, but Daryl still didn't trust him.   
"He told me some stuff, and I brought him here so that he could tell you." 

Daryl sat back in the chair and stared at Negan. He was filthy from hitting the dirt, but somehow looked older and more... brittle. The scar on his throat was a dark red even in the low, flickering light from the fire; healed, but quite visible on his long, pale neck. He looked... smaller somehow. He sat there with his shoulders curled in, his posture slumped so incongruously from the way he'd carried himself when he'd killed Glenn and Abe that it was almost like looking at another person. Daryl waited until Negan met his gaze, and the nervousness there was surprising. If he was lying, he was the fucking best liar Daryl had ever met. 

When Negan spoke, his voice was a raspy whisper. "When Simon killed her people, I thought she was gonna clean my fuckin' clock. It was just her in that tetanus breeding ground, but when I went to pick up her offering, she set me on my ass. Almost killed Lucille, and we got in a tussle. I had a flare and was all set to set her shit on fire, but there was a... helicopter."

Daryl snorted, and Negan looked up to meet his gaze for the first time. "I'm not fuckin with you. It was a helicopter, sure as I'm sitting here." 

Carl cleared his throat. "I had the same reaction when he told me. But I saw it, Daryl." 

Daryl felt one eyebrow wing up under his bangs. 

"She'd been living in the zone, but she... she disappeared a few days before my dad blew up that bridge. Gabriel was with her, and he said... he said that she's been trading people to this group for supplies. You remember Heath?" 

Daryl nodded, stealing a quick glance at Negan. Negan stared back, before jerking his gaze away. It made Daryl feel weird, and he wanted to drag Negan back to the jail and let Michonne or Maggie deal with him. 

"Well, that's what she was doing. She was going to send Negan there, and he got away. She really did a number on Gabriel. She was gonna send him off too. Talked about being an A or a B." Carl's voice hardened. "He wouldn't tell me anything else. I went to her place and found some stuff. Morgan'd been there, too."

"Regular goddamn hostel," Negan muttered. 

Daryl was surprised to hear that. Morgan had not been... right... for a while. It didn't surprise him to realize that he'd been living at the junkyard, but it did surprise him that Carl had spoken to him. 

"Daryl, she's been doing this for a while. Trading people, our people, to try to make a place for herself in whatever fucked up community would take her."

"Fuckin' trash Romulan." Negan glared at the fire as it popped. "She was so pissed that the flare didn't flag down her ride. But sending Gabriel there was cold, man." 

Carl bent into his bag and rifled through it until he found what looked like a notebook and some papers. He tossed them into Daryl's lap, and he realized it was a journal and a map. 

"Those were hers. Gabriel found the notebook in some of her stuff, and the map I found in her base at the junkyard. Morgan had been there like I said. He wrote a lot of stuff, and some of it was on this map." 

Daryl flipped over the map and saw that there was writing there. The words 'Duane, Clear, Jenny, Henry, and Eastman' were repeated over and over in a mishmash of pseudo sentences. Sometimes the words were large, and sometimes so minuscule that Daryl had to squint to read them in the firelight. It was incredibly disturbing to see. He saw a circular mark on the map and flipped it over, frowning. The mark was the kind you get when you press really hard on the paper. The mark was in what looked to be a black ball-point pen, a spot near a river delineated with a large **A** in the center of it. 

Carl leaned over and pointed to a spot just north of the circled spot. Daryl sucked in a shocked breath through his teeth. 

It was the bridge. 

He looked up to Carl with wide eyes. 

"Daryl. This is the place. Jadis, or Anne, or whatever she's called--"

"Trash Romulan!" Negan muttered, not very much under his breath. 

Carl almost smiled. "She had a whole system. And now she's gone. What if she took my dad with her? An A has to be a good thing, right? Stong? She finally took someone strong and they..." His voice cracked. "They took them somewhere." 

Daryl had to break the intensity of Carl's gaze. He looked down at the map, not seeing the marked lines and indicated landmarks. Instead, he saw the area itself. He'd been there several times, up and down the terrain. He'd fished in that river. Sometimes his catch was bluegill bass and other fresh fish. Sometimes his catch was far more gruesome walkers or recently killed humans floating down the river. He'd camped on the shore. His mind whirled. There were several places a helicopter could land in the sandy, rocky shoreline. 

His entire body felt cold, then terribly warm. He'd been looking ceaselessly, had burned bridges with his family over his insistence that Rick, or Rick's body, had to be out there somewhere. He'd been going on nothing but his own desperate need and denial. The fact that there was a chance... and Daryl had no illusions of how much of a slim chance this was... but a fucking chance that Rick was alive made his throat feel tight with all the emotion he'd never been able to express right. 

"You said you saw a helicopter?" 

Carl jumped, not expecting Daryl to speak. "Yeah. It was far off. Headed south. Daryl, what if they have different bases? I mean... helicopters?! We can find them. We _can._ "

"Look. You don't gotta believe me, and it's not like we're gonna end up braiding each other's hair or anything, but I want to help you and the kid get to Rick. I... owe him." Negan jutted his chin towards Carl, drawing Daryl's gaze to how Carl sat stock still, almost trembling with the need to go. "The kid deserves a chance to track this lead down. To find dear old daddy-o." Negan shrugged one shoulder, attempting to look as though he didn't care what Daryl had to say. Daryl could see right through him. Negan's leg was jumping in place with nerves, and his hand was clenched to hide his shaking fingers. Daryl still didn't trust him as far as he could throw him, but again, he couldn't help but think that if Negan was lying, he was doing a fuckin' Oscar-worthy job of it. 

Carl's voice shook, and Daryl heard him swallow hard. "We found this. We can find more, Daryl. But we need your help." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly short chapter, and posted a little late because of the holiday. Sorry about that!!
> 
> ❤❤❤  
> The "Trash Romulan" comes from my trekkie angst at the fact that I absolutely _loathed_ that character. #notsorry. 
> 
> So I didn't tag this Carl/Clem, because I think I'm pretty much the only person on the planet that ships them. Talk about a rare pair! 😅 However, if you guys think it will work, or won't work, please feel free to tell me in the comments.


	5. March 9th, 2014; 11:49 PM

**11:49 PM**

* * *

Rick was fucking exhausted. 

Clementine had taken point, and Rick felt like an old man- hell; he _was_ an old man- as he followed her slight figure through the dark night. The rain had started again, and while he appreciated the cover it provided, the constant susurrus made it difficult to listen for both the walkers and live enemies. The signs that they could see in the intervening flashes of lightning showed them that they were indeed in Lexington, Kentucky. The graveyard of a few car dealerships was strangely spooky; the hulks of the dark cars were potential traps for something to hide behind. In the dark, everything seemed to have just that much more potential for them to fuck up. 

_The rain and wind gusted so deeply that the only thing they could hear was the heavy, screaming wind. Then nothing. No wind. One heartbeat. Two. The pressure suddenly tipped, sending ears popping as the sound of a freight train seemed to shake the very foundation of the rickety barn in which they'd sheltered. In a flash of lightning, Carl scrambled towards the barn doors. Rick realized what was happening in the seconds it took for each of their family to push with the dregs of what they had left to keep the walkers out of the barn. Rick didn't know if it was a twister or just a terrible storm. Time stopped. It took all of them, working together to keep all of them safe._

Rick jolted out of his thoughts when he felt Clementine's cold fingers wrap around his wrist, and he realized that he'd been so deep into his memories that he'd almost walked right past her. 

"Rick- I think we need to stop. I'm about to fall over, and you're barely wearing anything." 

Rick blinked, looking around at the area she'd stopped at. They were at a cross street of what had probably been a really nice neighborhood back in the day. Two apartment buildings faced an upscale shopping area. "Apartments?" 

Clementine shrugged. "Better chance to hide. Good supplies." Water dripped off her hat in a steady stream. She was shivering too, and Rick couldn't help but feel mildly guilty. 

Rick pressed his temples, trying to think. It was so hard to focus when he was this tired. "Okay. In from the back?" 

Clementine just scoffed, making her careful way to the back of the building. The last thing he wanted when people were looking for them was to look like he just busted down a door for shelter. That would stick out like a sore thumb. Going in through a window or a back door, maybe they'd get lucky and find a side patio sliding glass door to hide the fact that someone alive was hiding there. The apartment building she chose was four stories, with a sister building in an L shape in the back. The dregs of a swimming pool and a small rec area filled the space between the two buildings. Several small balconies opened towards the pool. A lot of them were broken, which is exactly what they wanted. Enough was broken that it didn't look like anyone had vandalized that specific door, so they were able to camouflage their entrance. Clementine used the knife to tap against the window frame. It was such a simple yet vital part of surviving that most people did it without thinking about it. Rick had spent so much time in a weird drugged state that seeing her do that was bizarrely jarring. Clementine picked her way through the remnants of the apartment, being careful not to brush against anything. Rick did the best that he could, but his stumbling body kept fighting him. He barely tracked where they went, going through doors, down corridors and up and down stairs blindly. They could hear things moving behind closed doors, but someone had obviously used this area before because many of the apartment doors had been boarded up from the outside so that nothing could get through. Rick only realized that they had gotten to their destination when Clementine grabbed his wrist again, halting his process. 

"Oh. S-s-orry."

"It's fine, but. Here. Wait a sec." He heard the _snick snick_ of a lighter and a faint light illuminated the area around her face. It only now occurred to him that the lightning had stopped- or they were somewhere with no windows. . Clementine took a step away from him and in a moment she had made a makeshift torch. They blinked owlishly as their eyes adjusted and looked around. 

Someone had obviously lived here before. A small camping stove sat on a cooler, and a mattress and several blankets were strewn about. The little campsite was shoved into a corner of what looked to be an old laundry room. Rick met Clementine's gaze and they both moved to the nearest dryer, kicking at the vent and plug and lifting it to put in front of the door. They took another and did the same thing, Rick trembling now as his muscles begged him to let them rest. 

"A washer would be heavier, but if something tried to get in while we slept, this would make a helluva sound coming down." 

Clementine took the light and inspected the rest of the basement while Rick stumbled to the little camping site, moving it so that it wasn't in direct eyesight of the door, dragging it to a slightly more defensible area where the dryers had been. He moved the metal folding table so that it was on its side, and winced as the loud sound echoed through the basement. Rick's shoulders slumped, feeling like a rube. 

"Fuck," he muttered, ducking his head. 

Clementine's sigh said plenty. 

They both waited for a good half-minute for something to come jumping out at them, drawn by Rick's stupidity. When nothing happened, he continued to shake out the blankets. He was tired enough that the mattress could have had a dead body on it, and he probably would have slept on it anyway. Clementine doused the light, and he could hear her clothes rustling in the darkness, and a small clink of metallic items hitting the concrete floor. Rick stripped off the windbreaker and the hoodie, then turned away to take off his sweat pants. They were filthy and sodden with the sheer amount of water that he'd been in, and it took a few moments to wring them out. They felt cold and clammy when he put them back on, but he wasn't sopping wet, which was definitely an improvement. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them, hoping that some hint of light would allow him to see, but it was pitch black. 

"I think we're good for a bit. Enough to get some rest anyway. Dawn can't be all that far off, and we can figure some stuff out then." 

Rick nodded and cautiously stretched out on the mattress, politely hugging the side as best he could without falling off. Clementine did the same on her side, and the small twin mattress barely managed to hold them both. Rick felt a little awkward with his naked back to her but could feel material between them, so he guessed it wasn't too inappropriate. If it was, he had no doubt that Clementine would let him know. 

He wanted to take the time to think about their situation, maybe come up with a plan, but as soon as he burritoed himself in the blanket (he'd had the bare presence of mind to give Clementine the heavier quilt) and his body relaxed into some semblance of comfort, he was out. 

* * *

  
Rick smelled cinnamon. 

Rick woke up warm and comfortable, and it was such a difference from waking up restrained and loopy that adrenaline spiked through his system, causing him to jackknife up in the bed. 

"Good morn--- oh wow. You have curly hair too." 

Rick brought a hand up to his head and winced. Last night, he'd hardly been worried about bedhead and unfortunately, the good lord never blessed him with straight, perfectly manageable hair. He had 'curly', 'tamed back into submission with a shitton of gel' and 'Chia Pet.' This was a good mix of Chia Pet with some bending of the laws of physics if the amused look on Clementine's face was any indication. "Yeah. I usually keep it short." 

Something that he said caused Clementine's smile to dim. "Yeah. Someone I used to know told me that I should always take care to keep it short." Clementine brought her hands up to her hair and quickly refashioned her hair into two stubby ponytails. The excess she hacked off with the knife, tossing it towards the side of the room. She indicated with her chin towards a small area in the corner, and Rick groaned as he got to his feet to go investigate. Either Clementine or the people who had lived here before had made a makeshift privy. Rick pissed for what felt like an hour. It smelled heavily of chemicals and Rick had to stifle the anger he felt at the fact that those motherfuckers had drugged him. He finished and wiped his hand on a rag, in lieu of washing his hands, and crossed the basement back to their living area. 

Rick nodded and inhaled, returning her smile with one of his own. He realized that he could see, which surprised him. He hadn't caught a glimpse of any windows, but he _had_ been pretty out of it. In the dark, it would have been easy enough to miss. Clementine had pulled up one board, just enough to let in some of the dim daylight from outside. 

"You've been up long?" 

"Not too much. Maybe an hour. The storm still hasn't passed, but it's maybe, eight or nine in the morning." She indicated the camp stove. "I found this and didn't see the point of not using it. You feel better?" 

Rick nodded, taking in the small, single plate camp stove and the bubbling food in the small pot. Clementine turned off the stove and handed him the bowl with a spoon. Rick's stomach grumbled and Clementine grinned outright, making shooing motions with her hands. 

"It's oatmeal." 

It was fucking delicious. Rick found himself scooping out the dregs in the bowl and licking the spoon. It only took him maybe two minutes tops to finish it, and even then he didn't care that he burned his tongue. "Thanks." Clementine busied herself with checking the weapons in the small time that it took Rick to eat. She shrugged, dismissing his thanks. She handed him a water bottle, and Rick took it with a nod of thanks. He took a drink and waited until she looked up at him, meeting her clear gaze with a deep stare. "I mean it. I lost count of the number of times you saved my ass. I won't ever forget this." 

Clementine's answering smile was very sweet. "Well, they were assholes. You obviously didn't want to be there, and I figured we'd have a better shot if it was the two of us against them." She sighed. "Actually, it's probably good that it's raining. I have to get home, but given how much they had at this campsite I get the feeling that there are still things we can use to help us. Get supplied. I mean, they couldn't have cleaned out the whole city, right?" 

Rick set the bowl and spoon aside. "Depends on how big their operation is. Who were those people?" 

Clementine moved back over to the mattresses. Rick noticed that she had been careful to keep her line of sight blocked from the doorway, even when cooking, to make sure no one could get the drop on her. Maybe him dropping the table on its side hadn't been so terrible after all. Seated, or lying down, no one could see them around the table. 

She took a deep breath. "Well, I don't know what they call themselves, but this symbol was all over their shit." She traced three interlocking circles in the grime on the ground. It reminded Rick of the Olympic games or a really detailed Venn Diagram. "I'm afraid I don't know much. Their communities are insanely organized. They go out into the world and look for people that will make their community strong. I think that's how you got there in fact- someone sold them to you for... well, I'm not sure what for actually. I had to listen while pretending like I wasn't listening, and after awhile they were pretty careful around me." She took in a deep breath. "I'm from a place... well, I'd have to look at a map to be sure, but I have a little group of people that I helped take care of. We'd had some problems with raiders and grownups lookin' to take our shit, but we handled it. When I first saw the helicopter--"

Rick sucked in a surprised gasp. "Helicopter?!" 

She nodded, mouth twisting into a wry almost-smile. "Yeah. Like I said, they're really organized. I've seen two helicopters, but there may be more. They have computers, medicine, well. You saw all that. Army stuff. Weapons and shit... and the good stuff too. Not the slings and bows and arrows that we were using." 

"I've... I've seen helicopters. For years." Rick remembered the two times he'd seen helicopters and figured that they were just from some army-type groups that had their shit together more than his own people. He'd never dreamed that they had something like-- "Wait. Communit ** _i_ _es_**?"

Clementine nodded again. "Yeah. They've got places all over. I know of one near Roanoke. I don't know where that is though. My... uh. geography isn't that good." 

Rick cocked his head. He stretched his legs out in front of him and wiggled his filthy toes. It had been a damn miracle that he didn't cut his foot on something in his insane run through the landscape from where they'd been kept, to the storm drain, to riding the bike to the city. He looked at Clementine looking at his feet. "You're what. Fifteen? Sixteen?" 

Clementine stared at him. "Something like that. And?" 

Rick shrugged and took another drink of the water. "Seems to me you've been so busy learning every other thing you needed to live that you should probably give yourself a pass on not knowing geography. That's what maps are for." He smiled a little sadly. "I have a son about your age. He barely knows the states. And a baby daughter." He sighed, running his fingers through his floofy hair. "And a whole group of people that probably think I'm gone." He sighed, tiredly. "So my goal, after we get you to your people, is to get home." 

Clementine's big, hazel, almost golden, eyes widened. "You... you'll help me get back home?" 

Rick nodded. "Of course." He thought for a moment. "It won't be easy. They're gonna figure we're gonna go either to your people or to mine, and I get the feeling they know everything there is to know about them. If they chased after us, then there's a reason we were there. It might could be that they ain't gonna let us go all that easily." 

"Right." She looked down at her knees. "So first, we find supplies. Maps. Then we go to Ericson. Simple." 

Rick didn't think it was going to be quite as simple as all that, but he appreciated her positivity. "They're going to be looking for us." 

Clementine frowned. "Maybe not. I mean, they could cut their losses." 

"But they chased us. I think our best bet is to rest today, supply up what we can from this apartment building- we could get lucky and find it's not too picked through. Then we should travel at night, so we can hear them coming. You could hear that motorcycle for miles. Same with any kind of vehicle. I don't mind getting one, eventually, but for the first few miles, we need to be stealthy as we travel to ... did you say, Ericson?" 

"Yeah. So from here, do you want to find another place to stay, or do you want to just stay here? The dryers are stopgap at best." 

"They'll have to do. We don't have the tools to take the plywood from any of the doors to block off the doorway. The dryers are bulky, but they'll be loud as hell if something takes 'em down I think it's best to get some rest while we can."

"You think we need to take turns sleeping?" 

"I'm a paranoid bastard. I prefer that we take shifts. Each of us gets two hours then go from there?" 

Clementine nodded. "You rest first. I'm going to go through these washers and dryers and see if there was anything left. I found some books and even with the rain there's enough light to see, so it's not too bad. Better than sitting in the dark." 

Rick felt a bit guilty. "Clementine, you sure you don't want to sleep first? I don't mind." 

"Nah. Age before beauty, Mr. Grimes." 

Rick snorted and flipped her off, then froze, shocked at himself. It's what he would have done to Carl, or Tara, or Daryl. Clementine snickered and Rick couldn't help but grin as he stretched back out on the mattress. His belly was full, and having a plan made him feel a little better about such a huge amount of unknown. The truth was, he desperately missed his family. He had so many questions about this ultra-community of people who felt it their right to steal people from their homes, but those would wait. Clementine was good people, and she was right; working together only made sense. He breathed deeply, and let himself slowly relax, feeling all of the niggling worries slowly start to recede. 

He was asleep within minutes. 


	6. March 10th, 2014; 6:55 AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um haiii. Sorry that I missed a week. RL was doin' how RL sometimes does. 😐 Hope you enjoy this week's offering!

6:55 AM, Sunrise

* * *

The next morning, Daryl insisted on leaving a note.

Carol had been good about giving him his space, understanding, in that way she had, more about what was going on in his head better than he did half the time. She knew that she couldn’t force him into going to either the Kingdom, the Hilltop, or the Zone. She hadn’t pushed. But, she had asked that he let her know if he was going to be gone for awhile. When she’d said it, the solemn voice and wide eyes had hinted at darker things, and Daryl hadn’t been able to meet her gaze.

Still, figuring out what to tell her was difficult enough. He’d gone through two drafts before he settled on the simple enough

> _C-_
> 
> _Gone to follow up on a lead. The kid and the Fuckhead are with me. Try not to worry._
> 
> _-Pookie_

He hoped the ‘Pookie’ would be enough to not send her into a panic. That, or the fact that he had tried to be funny would give her a damn heart attack. Either way, since he didn’t know where he was going exactly, he couldn’t be more clear. Also, he didn’t want anyone following him. And given that there was no one in any of their groups that could track as well as him, he felt pretty confident that no one would.

There were a finite amount of people who knew how to get him if he needed. Maggie was busy with her baby. There was a pretty good chance that when she found out he was working with Negan she’d never talk to him again. They’d never been close, and while she’d never said anything, the fact that none of them had saved Glenn had always been slightly under the surface. This act of betrayal could be the final tipping point. She didn’t know his exact location, but knew that Carol and Michonne did. Michonne knew, of course, but she never left the Zone much. They’d tripped over each other in their search for Rick, and he’d held her while she’d broken down, his own gut crawling with self-hate and cowardice. Jesus might have a general sense of where he was. He knew the area pretty well, but Daryl had never seen any trace of him at his camp.

That was it.

He put the letter in a ziptop bag and stuck it high enough in a tree with a knife that no walker would accidentally fuck with it. It didn’t take long to pack his shit. He had a tiny tent, his water, some rations, his knives, a blanket, and his extra crossbows.

“You ready?” Carl tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire, causing it to hiss as it hit the few embers there. Negan sat patiently beside the two of them, not speaking. Carl had cut the zip tie he’d used to first restrain him, and Negan rubbed his wrist idly, staring at nothing.

Carl dropped a bag at Negan’s feet, and surprised, the older man looked up at him. “Here. It’s not much, but it will keep you alive.” He flung a knife down on top of the bag. Daryl had to check his first reaction, which was to frown at the kid for handling a weapon so shittily. He’d taught him better than that.

“This okay?” Negan looked up at Daryl, indicating the knife with his chin.

Daryl shrugged, then looked directly into Carl’s good eye.. “If it ends up in my back, it’s on you.” He ignored Negan’s contribution completely.

Carl nodded. “It won’t.” He sounded utterly convinced. Daryl didn’t miss the way that Negan ducked his head at the conviction in Carl’s tone. Daryl didn’t know what on the fucking God’s green earth made Carl trust that Negan wouldn’t just murder them both in their sleep, but he was-- with the utmost caution-- willing to let it play out a little. He couldn’t deny that Negan had always been weirdly fascinated with Carl, and vice versa. He didn’t much _like_ it, but Carl was responsible enough to be trusted.

“I think our first plan should be to check out the spots Jadis marked on the map. I’ve read through her journal backwards and forwards, but other than some entries about her people, I get the impression that she didn’t know where they were. Not exactly. She talked about needing the time to “investigate more thoroughly.” There are a few mentions of someone named Mercer, usually right after a hand off.”

Carl leaned close and showed Daryl the list he’d indicated. Very few had names. Most were delineated by their physical description. There were fifteen names there, with ‘Rick Grimes’ being the last. Negan’s name had been crossed through a few times, and so had Gabriel’s. In the margin was an A or a B next to each name. Daryl felt a cold anger slide slowly through his veins as he realized what those names meant. She’d tried fifteen times to earn a spot with this other group, and had had few qualms about giving them fourteen human beings as payment. This snake of a human being had been _in their home_ , living with them while she plotted to hand some of their members over to this group.

“Let’s go then.” He whistled low for Dog, smirking a little at the way Negan gave the animal a wide berth. “We can start at the junkyard and work our way back through what she had on the map and in the journal.”

Carl nodded and set off. Daryl sure as shitfire wasn’t going to let Negan walk behind him, so Negan followed the kid, and Daryl followed him. Dog walked along beside them as they made their way through the woods, down the few game trails and out towards the highway that most of them used between Alexandria and the Kingdom.

The walk to the junkyard was fairly uneventful. Entry was no longer secure, so the three of them found themselves being slightly more cautious in case there was another surprise for them somewhere. They weaved their way through the maze of junk and old shipping containers to the area that the community here had used as living space. The last time Daryl had been here, they’d been fighting for their lives against an unknown entity. Now, it was eerily quiet.

“Oh.”

Carl’s drew out the syllable. Negan whistled, low, and by the time Daryl crowded close enough to peek over their shoulders his skin was crawling.

Whatever mental issue Morgan was suffering from was. . . evident. The words that he’d written on the back of Jadis’s map also covered everything they could see.

“I saw this before. With my dad. He writes it so he gets it out of his head.”

“Well shit. With this much, he should be the most well-adjusted motherfucker in existence.” Negan gestured to the words written in blood on the outside of the shipping containers, continuing to the inside. The walkers he’d used for the blood were lined up with almost military precision next to what had been the old gladiator ring. Oftentimes, the walker’s blood had coagulated to a sludge that wasn’t ideal to write with, so the fact that Morgan had clearly used some of the collected water to thin it out was almost as disturbing as the scene he’d set.

“This place is creepy as fuck. Let’s look for what we need to look for, and move on down the road.” Carl looked around, jerking his head towards a larger shipping container that was off a little more. “Was this hers?”

Negan spoke up. “Yeah. Crazy bitch almost killed me there.” His fists tightened at his side.

Daryl wanted to punch him. Good. Shit would have been a lot easier if he **had** been killed. Most of their problems would be gone. He shook his head and started searching through the strewn-about piles of Jadis’s shit. It didn’t take long to check. There wasn’t much left, and what was left had been gone through pretty thoroughly. Daryl frowned and sat down on an overturned crate, looking at the map they’d found here, staring at the spots she’d marked. He felt Carl at his left and obligingly shifted over so the kid could see the map.

“Okay. We’re here.” He indicated the star, his thin fingers tapping next to where Daryl held the map. “I wish this was a better map. Maybe we can find one with actual roads and highways on it and try to transfer it over.” He traced one of the marks, frowning. “The A, S, and K, are obviously Alexandria, the Sanctuary, and the Kingdom, but the map doesn’t even show Hilltop. Did Jadis know about Hilltop?”

“She knew about everything.” Negan flinched when both Daryl and Carl looked at him and quickly ducked to sit on the pallet she’d used as a bed. It was just a twin box spring and bed with a tarp over it, but when he sat down, his weight just caused something heavy to scrape against the metal floor. Negan’s brow crinkled as he kneeled down in front of the mattress and peeled back the tarp. Daryl met Carl’s gaze and turned to watch. There wasn’t anything immediately eye-catching under the tarp, but Negan pushed down where his ass had been and dragged the mattress again. Sure enough, the scraping sound of something metallic filled the whole area.

Carl walked over to Negan and watched as he lifted up the mattress. Negan pulled out what looked like a metal military lockbox, maybe two feet wide. “Huh.” Daryl watched as Negan put the bed back together, sat down, and looked at the box. The two latches on the side were locked with two different padlocks. He traced his fingers over the locks. “We gotta have bolt cutters or a hacksaw somewhere.”

Carl snorted. “You know my dad taught me better than that.” He walked over to where he’d set his backpack and pulled out a small hacksaw. The blade wasn’t huge, but it would get him into any locked place he wanted to get into. “Hand it over.”

Thunder grumbled in the distance, and Daryl found himself blinking to adjust to the lower amount of light coming into the shipping crate. Negan handed over the box and Daryl found himself holding his breath as Carl sawed through the locks. He briefly met Negan’s gaze, and not for the first time, wondered what the fuck Negan’s contribution was to this little field trip. It was almost impossible to equate the brutal murderer with this almost effacive man in front of him.

It took a few minutes, but Carl cut through the locks with little difficulty. Daryl stood and looked unabashedly over Carl’s shoulder as the kid opened up the small box. Inside was an envelope, a small notebook, a zippo lighter, a pen, and three chocolate bars. Carl handed Daryl the notebook while he dumped the other things into his backpack. “Bummer I had to cut the box, otherwise, I’d keep that too.” He tossed a chocolate bar to Negan who blinked a few times before putting it into his backpack.

Daryl thumbed through the small black book. He frowned. All he could see was a list of numbers, written in small, neat, columns. Two of the sets were crossed out so hard that the pen went through to the paper below.

> 0430 07152010 38.800540 -77.077760
> 
> 0900 10302010 38.800540 -77.077760
> 
> 1630 01152011 38.842390 -77.063370
> 
> 0430 04302011 38.842390 -77.063370
> 
> 0900 07152011 38.800540 -77.077760
> 
> 1630 1030011 38.854350 -77.115520
> 
> 0430 01152012 38.842390-77.063370
> 
> 0900 04302012 38.846772, -77.176650
> 
> 1630 09152012 38.846772, -77.176650
> 
> 0430 01302013 38.868799, -77.177127
> 
> 0900 0152013 38.846772,-77.176650
> 
> 1630 06302013 38.868799, -77.177127
> 
> ~~0430 07152013 38.846772, -77.176650~~
> 
> ~~0900 08302013 38.846772, -77.176650~~
> 
> 1630 ~~09152013~~ 09102013 38.846772, -77.176650
> 
> 38.72139 -77.515556
> 
> 38.397223 -77.449844
> 
> 37.36373193839651, -79.480764752158
> 
> 38.51537685434542, -81.0989511929887

“What the fuck is this?” Daryl squinted in the low light. “ Oh-four-three-oh-oh-seven-one-two. . .”

“I don’t know. It’s weird. Let’s get out of here into actual light. Maybe we can figure it out.”

Carl moved towards the exit, scooping up his bag and putting the hacksaw back inside. He checked his blind spot and left the area with his guard up. The rumbling thunder always tended to bring the walkers out of the woodwork, so all three of them moved carefully to have eyes on as much as they could. Dog, who had been sniffing around the open area of the junkyard huffed at them once as though to say ‘about time’ before trotting over to Daryl.

With a crash of thunder, the rain started pissing down. Daryl shoved the book under his clothes in his backpack so it wouldn’t get ruined.

“I have a place we can go to. It’s not fancy, but it’s not far. Come on.” Carl pulled the hoodie up over his head and made his careful way out of the junkyard, avoiding both dead walkers and random pieces of junk that had fallen off the pile. The rainfall increased, and Daryl shivered. Dog shook himself off, then looked towards Daryl as though the cold rain was his fault before barking and trotting after Carl. Negan followed without a word, shoulders hunched in his plaid shirt, and Daryl found himself picking up the rear again.

Even without knowing what those numbers meant (although, he had no doubt they would figure them out) Daryl couldn’t help but feel a very cautious burst of hope. Sure it was possible that these could just be birthdates of someone Jadis cared about or something, but he had a feeling that there was more to it than that.

They walked for a good hour, keeping their pace fairly quick. Carl went north, and Daryl raised an eyebrow. With all of the communities being to the south and to the west, they tended to ignore the north, with the idea that the area around DC, and the huge herds that had come from the bigger cities were going to be such a clusterfuck that it made sense to explore other areas first. Jesus had coordinated a huge map of the area with areas that they’d checked for supplies, areas that had an exceptionally large amount of walker activity, and areas that were marked as dangerous for one reason or another.

The house _was_ in the middle of nowhere. Carl was right. It wasn’t much, but the old basement of the burnt-out house was dry. He didn’t keep many supplies stashed away, but there was a mattress, a hurricane lamp, and a few bottles of water. The four of them shook off what water they could before going downstairs. Carl set a trap and made sure the windows were covered, while Negan, Dog, and Daryl all found places to sit, assuming that Carl would take the mattress.

The little lamp made the darkened basement look more cozy than dilapidated. Daryl pulled out the book and passed it to Carl. He spread out the little map, wishing again that it was a better map; something that showed the interstate or at the very least, other states. Instead, it was a ‘Welcome to Alexandria’ map, with some of the major roads and landmarks indicated. There was a little bit of the surrounding area, but not enough.

Carl frowned. “Is it a code?” He passed it to Negan.

“These are latitude and longitude. Look. Thirty-eight-point-eight-oh-oh-five-four-oh is the latitude. The longitude is shown by the negative symbol and the numbers that fall after. These are places.”

Daryl and Carl stared at him, nonplussed. Negan barely noticed, frowning down at the numbers scrawled in the little notebook. He seemed excited that he knew the answer, eyes showing life, and a little twist to his lips. 

“That means that this. . . yeah. This is a time. Was the Trash Romulan in the military?” He stared at Carl, then at Daryl, who tried to at least close his mouth. “Don’t matter. If that’s a time, then this is a date. So uh. . . the first one is 4:30 am, July 15, 2010.” Negan whistled. “That’s just after all this shit hit.” He pointed at the numbers again. “That’s 2010, 2011, 2012. . . and wait, it's crossed out then written in. The last one was 4:30 pm, September 10, 2013.”

Daryl sucked in a sharp breath. It had been so long since he’d even thought about the date. The year. He stared down at the numbers, shocked.

“What do you want to bet that one of these crossed-out dates is me, and the other is ol’ Gabriel? I’ll be damned. How did she keep everything so organized?” Negan shook his head. 

“Well if those are the dates, then there's a pattern, see? The times repeat, and so do the dates. Uh, I’m sorry. I don’t remember what months those are.” Daryl watched as Negan took the pen and filled them in. “So. . . do you think the ones without dates are what. Places?” Carl traced the line of numbers. “We need to find out where these are. _Daryl_!”

Daryl jerked his attention to Carl, swallowing hard. His heart was beating so hard in his chest that he thought for a moment that he would just keel over.

“Don’t you see what this _means_ ?” Carl gripped his wrist tightly, eye wide as he leaned forward to convey his point. “If she met with the helicopter people in these places, then if we figure out where it is, or what the pattern is, then we can _find them_.”

**TBC!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, fuck. More math. Fear the Walking Dead gave me the glorious hot mess that was Nick, a deep love of the OTP of Nick/Troy and a fucking DATE. In ... one of the episodes, sorry I can't remember which one, Travis and Chris write 2010 on the gravestones and lo, there was great rejoicing from continuity nerds like myself. It took until a spinoff to get a date on when this whole shebang started! According again to the timeline I posted earlier, it's 1388 days since all the shit went down (including the dates before Rick woke up). (1208 before my story merrily branched off from canon.) Given all the hot, sweaty, Daryl and Rick we've seen in season 1 (bless them.) I'm going to give day 0 as May 22nd, 2010. (heh) So the date that Clem and Rick escape is March 9th 2014. Since I give no fucks on the Trash Romulan's backstory, I'm saying that she began attempting to make contact with the CRM ehh, two months in. Since she's not in this story at this point, ~~and I clearly think too much about this shit~~ but people still had questions, I thought I should clarify. 😁
> 
> Never has this picture been more apt :
> 
> **  
>   
> **
> 
> I also updated the map from the info in the last chapter! ****  
>   
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/stydfyvl2kve6p2/map-reunif.png?dl=0


	7. March 10th, 2014; 11:15 AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WELP.** My apologies for that ridiculously long hiatus. I wanted to finish a "little" Sterek fic I was working on. It was only supposed to be about 20k and ended up being 90. I felt it a better plan to work on one project at a time, but ... I'm back, bay bee!

11:15 AM

* * *

_"He’s gonna bring more to us.” Lori didn’t speak to him very much lately, and Rick couldn’t entirely hide the frustrated tightening of his lips at the sound of her voice. Finding the prison had been a godsend after the way they’d all wandered for so long, but he and Lori couldn’t seem to even converse without rubbing each other the wrong way._

_Rick watched as Daryl stood up from his crouch by the bike, his knees popping like firecrackers. Daryl had been adamant that he would be able to get it working and that he could muffle the sound so that it wasn’t - in his words- ‘like ringin’ the fuckin’ dinner bell whenever I need to go find supplies.’_

_Rick glanced over to the walkers stacked up outside the prison four deep, to Carl looking at a comic with Glenn in the shade, to Daryl wiping oil off his hands with a rag. He turned to face Lori. “With so many making noise, I don’t think it’s the bike that’s gonna draw ‘em.”_

_He watched something unidentifiable filter over her features, and he found himself stifling the familiar feeling of helpless rage as he looked at his wife. Everything was so complicated; her hatred of his killing of Shane, his feelings of betrayal every time he saw just how pregnant she was, unable to stifle the thought of exactly whose kid was cooking in there. It was a mess he didn’t feel ready to tackle. Maybe once she had the baby, they could get past all this anger._

_Lori must have seen something else on his face because she turned away with a little huff of breath that usually meant she was pissed but not pissed enough to tell him what was wrong. Rick found his gaze drifting back towards Daryl before he shrugged it off and walked over to the fences, relieving Carol in walker disposal._

* * *

The small touch on his shoulder caused Rick’s eyes to pop open, adrenaline flooding through his system as he shook off the remnants of the dream. Before he could say anything, he felt a brush of a hand against his lips and the handle of something pressed into his hand. He quickly looked to Clementine and nodded, and she nodded back, holding up three fingers. 

Rick sat up slowly, taking stock of how he felt. He’d expected to feel woozy or dizzy, but the food and sleep must have done him a world of good. He still felt off, but he didn’t feel like he was half a heartbeat away from collapsing. 

Something clanged against the floor in the outside room, and Clementine pushed at his shoulder, indicating he should get up. Rick hefted the knife she’d given him. He’d never seen it before and assumed it was part of the supplies here. Which, if whoever had lived here before had left their weapons _and_ food, it was a pretty sure bet that they weren’t coming back any time soon. 

A crash of thunder caused Rick to roll his eyes. Figures. Thunderstorms always brought the walkers to investigate. He got to his feet and peeked up over the table. The rank smell told him what to expect. One of the walkers had gotten its foot tangled with what looked like one of the dryer’s vent hoses. It was twitching around, following the sound of the thunder as it growled around the room. 

It was actually kind of pathetic. But, if it put its weight too much further against the dryers, they would fall over, making an even louder sound. 

Rick started to move towards it, but Clementine stayed his movement with a hand around his bicep to his surprise. She pointed to her left and up, and Rick saw a pair of booted feet outside the basement window. The window was a fire window and opened from the inside but had been partially blocked with newspapers and cloths by the previous owners so as to not give away any light from a lantern or flashlight in the night.

Shit. 

Rick got to his feet, crouching behind the metal table. The walker must have smelled the two of them because he went apeshit, groaning and snarling to get closer to the food it could sense. Rick strained his ears to listen, wishing that the small window afforded a better view. Clementine had moved part of the covering to allow some of the light in, but there wasn’t enough uncovered to see what else lurked there. 

Clementine moved towards the dryers, nimbly ducking out of the way of the walker’s grasp and peeking around the area. She pointed up and held up two fingers but didn’t kill the walker. 

Rick walked on bare feet towards her, mimicking her movement. He could see the beams of two flashlights further towards the front of the building, near the opposite of where they entered. If there were two in the building and one as a lookout, then they had to make their way out before they were seen. If the three were looking for them, and it was hard to believe that they were not, it wouldn’t go very well for him and Clementine. They weren’t giving off a vibe that made Rick think that they’d been found. It was more than two people just happened to be investigating this space, and Rick and Clementine were just really goddamn unluckily. 

Rick looked around. The basement area that they were in had been fairly nice. It was shaped like an X, with the elevator hallway in the two spaces' center. At the bottom half of the X was the laundry room that they had blocked off, with six washers and six dryers for the tenant's use. That opened into a ramped hallway that led up to the elevator area, with another space that mirrored the laundry room- perhaps some sort of maintenance area- on the other side, although it was on the ground floor. They had entered in the corner of the maintenance area's building last night and had made their space as safe as possible. There were no outside doors in this room and only one basement window for light. What had seemed blessedly secure last night now seemed to keep them trapped. 

When whoever owned the two flashlights came to their area of the basement to investigate the trapped walker, they would see where they’d blocked it off, and it would be fairly obvious that someone was there, hiding. 

Rick caught Clementine’s gaze and raised both eyebrows. He jerked his head towards the window. She shrugged one shoulder, then nodded, before handing him the rifle they’d taken off the man from last night and moving on silent feet to just under the window, readying herself with another knife. Rick felt oddly secure in the fact that even having known each other so little, they understood what needed to happen. 

The walker was furiously groaning now, reaching towards his hair. Rick looked over towards Clementine, who nodded and sprung into action. Rick moved at the same time, ducking its grasping arms in order to knife it in the head, sending it collapsing onto the floor with a muffled thud. He ducked down below the dryers, crouching low and peering through the small space left by the walker’s attempt to get its prey. He brought the gun up, waiting for a shot. The ramp once intended for the people carrying heavy baskets of laundry to not have to struggle with stairs, making it easy for him to gauge his aim.

He heard a shout of pain from the window as Clementine jerked open the window with a loud clatter. Rick couldn’t see what she was doing, but he had to trust her. Their communication had been utterly silent, but Rick knew it would work. 

The two flashlights swung in their direction, and Rick aimed and fired. The first bullet hit its mark, sending the body sprawling forward—the other person fired at Rick. The shot missed him, barely, pinging off against the metal table. Rick pulled the trigger again, and the man went down with a strangled “Shit!!”

Rick stood and vaulted over the dryer. Already off-balance, it hit the concrete floor with a terrible clatter, and Rick swore as he moved towards the fallen man. He had to get to him before he got to a radio or called for backup. There could be twenty men who just heard that. They had to get the fuck out, _now_. 

The man was, in fact, a woman, who stared up at him with wide, scared eyes, clutching her neck and bleeding out. 

Lori.

Rick froze, his heartbeat pounding wildly in his chest. He blinked, and the woman’s face changed. Instead of Lori’s long brown hair, Rick could see she had a small, stubby auburn ponytail. It was too dark to see the color of her eyes, but it was clear it was most emphatically _not_ his dead wife. She was too weak to fight him when he ended it, trying to shake off the guilt he felt. He didn’t know if it was guilt because of his fanciful hallucination or if he somehow still felt guilty after all the things he’d killed in the past three years. It didn’t matter, really. “Two down!” He called instead, keeping his voice low enough to carry to Clementine. He didn’t want to use her name in case there were others out there who would hear it. 

“Mine’s dead, too.” 

They both were silent for a minute, trying to hear any signs of their pursuers through the heavy thunder. 

He heard sounds from the basement as Clementine cleaned up her mess and quickly rifled through the two’s pockets. Their clothes were, again, shockingly clean. Rick helped himself to socks and boots. The man was a little taller than him, but they looked close enough in size that Rick figured he could steal his jeans. It was a bit disconcerting to feel the body heat from the two people he’d just killed against his body, but he mentally shrugged as he shimmied into the slightly too-tight jeans. He heard Clementine’s footstep behind him and turned so as not to give her an eyeful of his pasty ass. Rick bent to tie his boots. They were pretty nice Timberlands that fit him almost perfectly. “We gotta move.” 

“Way ahead of ya, man.” Clem jogged up to where Rick was tying his last laces, throwing the blanket near him. She’d tied up supplies in it in a little ball. He saw she’d folded and carried the little cookstove and carried her knife and a small can of fuel. “All the comforts of home.” She grinned, despite the danger, they found themselves in. 

The two of them walked out the way they’d come in, keeping low and watching for any sign of movement. Rick could see the bed of a pickup truck parked near the side where they’d entered. To his left, near where the basement window had been, was a man who had found himself stabbed, then pulled through the window. He stared with dead eyes up at the sky, his face frozen in faint surprise. 

“Do we take the truck?” 

“Fuck yes, we do. Hop in. I can drive.” Rick tossed his gear in the seat between them and watched as Clementine made her way around the back of the truck to ride shotgun. 

“Hunh.” Rick frowned as he shut the door, staring at the dashboard. Clementine immediately started searching for anything useful, pulling down the visors and opening the console between the seats. He put the truck into gear and drove away, keeping his speed low and not using the lights, driving around the debris in the street. 

“If anyone is looking for us, and they see this truck, it’s gonna put a target on our back.” Clem frowned down at what looked like a toy goldfish that someone had stuck into the glove box. 

“More than that, the tank is almost empty. I don’t know if it’s just our shitty luck or if they ration the gas, but we might not be using the truck for all that long.” 

“Well, that might be a good thing, really. Did either of your two have a phone or a radio?” 

Rick had been so discombobulated he’d forgotten to check. His hands tightened on the wheel. He shook his head. Thunder rolled, and the skies opened, raining down. It felt completely surreal to use the windshield wipers, and Clementine smirked a little at the _squeak squeak_ as they wiped the water off the glass, pressing back into the comfortable seat. They drove for a while in silence, watching the pavement ahead. The road was covered in debris. For whatever reason, their pursuers hadn’t needed or wanted the hassle of clearing the roads. It made Rick wonder why they’d taken a truck instead of a bike. His top speed was maybe twenty miles an hour, but he couldn’t maintain that with everything in the road. 

He exhaled loudly. Something about this...

“What’s up?”

“I can’t figure if they were just on patrol or if they were on patrol for us, specifically. There ain’t no sign of anyone lookin’ for us. I made a shitload of noise in that basement, and nothing came to find us. I just. . . I don’t trust it.”

Clementine frowned as she thought. Rick, feeling a sense of paranoia that he couldn’t stifle, started making turns willy nilly, moving in a completely different direction from the apartment that they’d been hiding in. 

“Fuck _me_. Rick, stop the truck!” Rick complied, braking hard enough that they both were pushed forward. He looked at Clementine, who had jerked open the passenger side door. “Get out. Come on!” 

Rick didn’t ask questions. He grabbed the supplies from the cab and got out, leaving the truck in the middle of the street. The rain was surprisingly cold, and he shivered. Clementine moved fast, and Rick hustled to keep up with her, looking around warily for walkers. 

Clementine didn’t waste time talking, and Rick didn’t waste time asking. The feeling that they’d been set up was almost impossible to shake off, and the idea that they had enough people and supplies to just write off the three souls that had come after them brought home just how absolutely fucked they were. Clementine turned direction, cutting through streets and alleys until she got to a road sign covered in blood and bullet holes. She then veered off towards the north and west, following near the road but not on it. Rick knew that was the opposite direction than where she wanted to go (both Alexandria and the school she wanted to go to were further east), but this would be a direction hopefully they wouldn’t expect. 

When he saw the numbers on the sign, Rick froze. Highway 62. His heart thudded loudly, and whatever spit in his mouth dried up, leaving his tongue feeling too large for his mouth. Thunder crashed as though to underscore the shock he felt. 

  
“Rick?” Clementine looked back over her shoulder, concerned. 

Rick had to physically force himself to take a step forward, so great was his shock. He’d known they were in Lexington, Kentucky, of course. _Lexington_. When he and Shane were sixteen, Shane had driven them out here to a place he knew’ and gotten both him and Rick laid for the first time. Carl had been born at the hospital here when Lori had needed a specialist. Yet somehow, he hadn’t made the connection. Too exhausted, maybe. Or too stoned from whatever they’d given him to realize that they were not even ten hours from where he’d lived and worked and loved: Cynthiana, Kentucky.

“I’m okay,” he wheezed and started back to the half walk, half trot that the two of them had adopted to go through the area. Going deeper into the city was dangerous, especially when the thunder and rain were loud enough to stir up any walker activity. Staying where they were, or worse, with the truck, was even more dangerous.

Rick could see the Clementine was limping. He wanted to ask her about it, but he knew they couldn’t stop yet; he couldn’t do anything about it anyway. Minutes bled into hours. Clementine kept a punishing pace, and twice they had to stop and kill off walkers when they hustled through some spot or another of the city. The rain stopped, relaxing from a deluge to a drizzle, then stopping completely. Clementine slipped once and seemed to twist something when she stepped into a puddle but kept going.

After what felt like hours of watching Clementine struggle, Rick blurted, “Wait. Need to stop. I’m exhausted. I think here will be okay.” Clementine’s limp looked painful, and she clutched her side as though there was a stitch there, her breathing heavy. She wearily looked around. 

They were at a crossroads, outside of Lexington proper, in the middle of what looked to have been many rural areas. Long since burned and dilapidated, one lone gas station had a shed and an ice dispenser hut near where the pumps would have been. The shed still had the vehicle crashed into it, with a rag-draped skeleton hanging out of the driver’s side window. It had hit part of the ice hut, but it didn’t seem to be otherwise damaged. Rick walked towards the ice hut. It didn’t take long to break open the door, and both of them winced at the musty, stale smell that wafted out. Back before the world ended, these sort of areas were common enough to get ice. They cost a goddamn arm and a leg, but they kept your beer cold and your whiskey colder. People hadn’t cared when the ice at the local gas station or Kroger ran out. 

The room was small, maybe five feet wide and twenty feet long, about half the length of a semi. With the door shut, it was pitch black. Something furry scurried out before they shut the door, but Rick couldn’t bring himself to give a fuck. 

He heard Clementine fumbling for something, and soon after, a small beam of light shining through her fingers illuminated the tiny spot. Rick sagged against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him. The light jiggled for a second, and Clementine threw some cloth over it so it wouldn’t give away their position in case someone somehow had followed them. 

“I don’t think we were followed,” Clementine said, unknowingly echoing Rick’s thoughts. 

Rick sighed. He blinked a few times, letting his eyes adjust to the meager light. “Me either. We gotta rest. And we got some shit to discuss.” 

“Yeah.” Rick watched as she unhooked her prosthetic, rubbing her stump with a frown. “Aw, fuck me, that’s better. I’m usually fine with my old one, but part of their plan to win me over was to have me fitted with this-” She held up the rubber leg and foot with a slight smile. “It is very well made. Rubs like a bastard when I’m on it a lot, though. Doc said it was like breaking in a new pair of shoes.” Her face darkened. “They liked to use it to. . . well. You can probably imagine.” 

Rick could. “I know we got some supplies, but honestly, I’m good to sleep here rather than find anything else. We ate yesterday, and we have plenty of water, right?” 

Clementine nodded, untying the blanket from the basement and spreading it out. “It’s not gonna dry, but we can drape it over the dispenser, just in case.” She started to rise, but Rick lurched to his feet before she could. There was a black, rubber flap that the ice would dispense through, covering a chute inside a thick plastic door about six inches both length and wide. The blanket was easy enough to drape over the purifying and water equipment, and Rick felt much better about their little shelter. He could see where the aluminum was dented in from where the vehicle had crashed, but no light peeped through. No walkers had been here, and likely no humans if the lock was to be believed. It was a nice little place. 

Clementine was busy setting out their supplies. “This isn’t too bad. I have two more packs of the oatmeal, two bottles of water that I boiled last night taken from our benefactors' reservoir, their stove, some matches, a novel that I’m about halfway through with, the fuel for the stove, and one pot. We have a bowie knife and my switchblade, your rifle and. . .” she made grabby hands. Rick handed her the rifle, and she quickly checked the safety and unloaded it to count the ammo “... seven shots. Not bad. We found enough clothes to be decent. I’d like to find some more if possible, just so we have a dry set if this rain keeps up.” 

Rick licked his lips a little nervously. “Well, about that. I have an idea of where we can go.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TO BE CONTINUED!!!
> 
> 💖💖

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings: Angst, abandonment issues, cruel behavior to a character with a missing limb.
> 
> Thanks as always, to jlm for everything. I love you, bb! And to TwdObsessive for the cheerleading and ass kicking!
> 
> Please feel free to say hi on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/1lostone) or [ Twitter](https://twitter.com/1lostone) for updates! 💖   
>   
> 


End file.
